


Tearing at The Seams (And Pulling Back Together)

by swampy (HeadedMints)



Category: Dragon Quest XI
Genre: Hero | Luminary is Named Eleven | El (Dragon Quest XI), Hurt/Comfort, M/M, but it can be taken that way, goddamnit erik the stupid orb can wait, i wanted them to stay in cobblestone a little longer, please no spoilers i haven't finished the game yet, the erik/eleven is pretty vague
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-23
Updated: 2021-02-23
Packaged: 2021-03-13 17:47:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29654997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeadedMints/pseuds/swampy
Summary: Erik watches Eleven stand there, staring up at one of the few things left intact in the whole village; a thick, sturdy tree, with a root of Yggdrasil twisted around its trunk like a massive snake. He watches Eleven stand there among the destruction with unfocused eyes and something deep within him is pushed aside to make room for something new. A little voice in his head tells him they can linger here in Cobblestone for a while longer yet.They can linger here in Cobblestone for as long as Eleven needs.
Relationships: Camus | Erik & Hero | Luminary, Camus | Erik/Hero | Luminary (Dragon Quest XI)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 19





	Tearing at The Seams (And Pulling Back Together)

**Author's Note:**

> i was walking through the ruins of cobblestone and saw that you could still sleep in eleven's bed... and the rest of it spiraled from there lol. i wish erik was a little nicer about your whole town being destroyed, so i'm gonna pretend that he was.

Slowly, Eleven blinks, as if opening his eyes for the first time. He looks up at the leaves swaying in the wind overhead and then turns, only now visibly realizing that Erik is standing there. Erik watches his eyes wander a little along the horizon behind him, finally settling somewhere off in the distance.

"I'm sorry." He manages. Eleven doesn't look at him, still staring off at the remains of a house on the stout hill by the river. "We - we got here too late. It's all gone."

Erik can tell that he's finally registering the destruction. He can see it in the way his eyes widen and his mouth turns.

"I know it's... a lot to take in," Erik says, putting a hand on Eleven's shoulder. The taller boy rests his hand on top of Erik's, lips thinning as he nods, quiet as ever. Suddenly the words he'd been thinking about saying the moment Eleven snapped out of his trance leave him. He flounders, tongue swollen in his mouth. "Um... Take your time."

Eleven nods again, clutching Erik's hand a little tighter for a long moment before he finally lets his hand fall to his side. Erik lets him go without another word.

Eleven walks down the path to the church, and Erik follows him at a distance, trying to give him some space. There's a stout, older man standing in front of it, hands folded in front of him in prayer, his closed eyes cast to the ground. Eleven silently gets his attention and stops to listen to him speak.

"When I heard this town was to be destroyed, I rode as fast as I could to try to convince the soldiers to spare it," The man frets, wiping a hand along his brow. He turns about himself, looking towards the white marble building behind him, untouched amidst scorched grass and torched homes. "Yet when I arrived they were already gone. It seems all they've spared is the church..."

Eleven nods and walks past him, his hands slowly curling into fists. He stomps straight to the altar with purpose and drops to one knee, clasping his fist in one hand in front of his chest. He bows his head low, firm as a statue, impossibly still.

"This was his hometown." Erik murmurs to no one in particular. The short man pats him on the back, consoling. Erik bitterly thinks that he's not the one that needs to be comforted. Yet he doesn't say anything to that effect out loud, and instead looks to the priest beside him. "Say a prayer for him, okay? I don't think any god would listen to me."

"You need only pray to be heard, child. But I'll do as you ask." The priest says, looking through the collapsed church doors and at the boy kneeling at the altar. Erik sees Eleven's shoulders start to shake, just barely; he leans forward a little further, huddling over his folded hands. The priest continues softly, "It's a tragedy what happened here. I'll pray that you two find peace."

It's a long while before Eleven stands, bowing his head one last time before turning away from the altar and walking outside. Erik waits for him by the remnants of a small broken bridge, idly staring down at the skinny, slow river that draws a thin line through the village. The riverbed is filled with pebbles. Further upstream it's littered with cracked stone bricks and splinters and half - burnt thatch.

Erik bends down to pick up a small piece of brick from a muddy boot print and throws it into the river as hard as he can, violently stirring up sediment as the water jumps up to swallow the stone.

"Done praying?" He asks as Eleven slowly approaches, expression unreadable. The boy nods. Erik turns away from the dirtied water and puts a hand on his hip, his thumb playing with the string of his dagger's sheath. The afternoon sun rises high overhead, the sky a brilliant pale shade of blue. A solitary cloud drifts by and casts a shadow over the town. "If it helps any, I - I prayed too. For everyone who lived here. For you."

Eleven nods, smiling a little, wistful. Erik watches his face fall neutral again, his eyes following the wave of sand and silt as it passes between the two halves of the destroyed bridge. Suddenly Erik feels deeply wrong; like a child who's touched when he'd been told just to look. His stomach turns as he wishes he could go back and not make the same mistake.

He swallows his nausea and asks, "What now?"

Eleven thinks for a moment. Then he rolls up his sleeves and reaches into the river, pulling out a cracked, waterlogged, muddy plank. He gently sets it on one side of the bridge and steps into the river so he can reach the plank's other half, setting it alongside it with the same amount of care. His leather boots turn a darker shade of brown in the water.

"Want me to help?" Erik asks. Eleven, ever thoughtful, considers for a moment, still bent over the short little bridge, hands planted on his knees. His gambeson flows over the outsides of his arms. He nods.

Erik follows Eleven's lead as he moves slowly about the village, reversing the destruction in what little way he can. Eleven, the stronger of the two, rights fallen wooden beams, muscles drawn taut up his forearms and beneath his shirt. Erik collects scattered and broken bricks and follows Eleven's direction, placing them where they ought to go. Eleven straightens a fencepost and puts the only unbroken slat back into its notches. Erik messily fixes the crack in a flowerpot with a fingerful of mud. They comb the village for the little damages and try to restore them. It isn't much.

The sun passes and begins to fall behind the high walls of the valley. Erik follows behind Eleven as he climbs up towards the obliterated house on the short little hill.

Eleven pauses in the remains of the doorway. He steps inside and carefully makes his way through the rubble, towards the corner of the house. He leans a cabinet without any doors back onto its feet with a grunt, then quickly turns to clear the shattered stones off a dented metal stove. He bends down and picks up a pot from the ground, its contents emptied across the floorboards, and sets it on the stovetop.

Erik watches him clear away the rubble piece by piece in silence, standing at the threshold. He doesn't move until Eleven suddenly cries out, then starts digging faster, throwing aside stone and brick and splinters. Erik hurries over and finds him still tearing through the wreckage, his fingers bleeding.

"Hey, what's wrong?!" Erik puts a hand on his shoulder but he keeps digging, working like a man possessed. His palms are cut open by sharp, broken rock, his fingers red and raw and starting to swell. He doesn't stop until he finally reveals a dirty piece of cloth and gently takes a torn apron from the rubble, his hands shaking. "That's..."

Eleven clutches it to his chest and lets out a sob, crying as he balls the fabric up in his fists. Erik pulls his hand away and backs up, only to bump into the one thing that wasn't destroyed; a simple bed with white sheets, the blankets thrown off to one side. Erik looks around the ruined house and something clicks.

"This was... your house, wasn't it?" Eleven nods, sniffling. He'd told Erik he had just undergone his coming of age ritual before he left for Heliodor - he'd never left home before then, and now it's all gone. Erik remembers the details of his story with sickening clarity. "Then... then that's your mother's."

He nods again. Eleven wipes his face on the back of his arm and coughs.

"You... you should rest," Erik says, patting him on the shoulder. Eleven looks up at him, eyes swollen and wet, straggler tears still running down his cheeks. Erik searches for an excuse and the cold night air blows through the mangled wall, the sky a deep purple above them. "We shouldn't leave while it's dark. C'mon, I'll bandage your hands, and then you can get some sleep."

Eleven quietly obliges. He stands, still clutching the apron in his fist as he slowly walks over to the bed and sets himself down on it. Erik opens his pouch and sets aside a roll of cloth bandages and a small bag of medicinal leaves. He gently eases the apron out of Eleven's hand and crushes one of the leaves, spreading it along each cut with his fingers. Eleven winces as the medicine inevitably stings.

Erik carefully winds the bandages around his right hand. He moves to the left one and pauses, staring down at the dark mark across his knuckles. There's a thin line of blood through the center of the sign of the Luminary - likely a reminder of the thing that completely upturned Eleven's life. Erik slowly runs his thumb along the bottom curve of the brand.

He notices Eleven looking up at him. He quickly reaches for the bandages again, fumbles, and then resumes his work until it's finished. The cloth is thick and the blood doesn't soak through. Eleven holds his left hand in his right and rests them in his lap, looking down at them.

"Don't worry, I'll keep watch for if Jasper's men come back," Erik says, packing away his supplies and affixing his bag to his belt once more. He stands from the bed and its wooden bones creak. "You just get some shuteye."

Eleven nods. He takes the apron back into his hand and hesitantly lays back in his bed, rolling onto his side, boots still on and his cloak bunching up around his shoulder. He pulls it against his chest and shuts his eyes, and Erik swears he can hear him whisper a quiet prayer, breaking his self enforced silence.

Erik sits down on the floor at the end of the bed and turns so he can see the wooden arch at the entrance to town between the broken walls. The moon is heavy and fat in the sky, lighting the valley even in the dark of night. The stars twinkle brighter than he's ever seen them in Heliodor, shining down on the whole sorry scene laid out below.

He waits until he hears Eleven's voice fade away, and until his breathing levels and sleep takes him. He leans back and stares out at the archway until his eyes become leaden and eventually drift shut, leaving him to sleep alongside him.

Erik wakes up to find Eleven not in his bed.

He scrambles to his feet and whips his head around, searching the whole house. He mentally reprimands himself, a little voice telling him _you shouldn't have fallen asleep, you said you'd watch him, what kind of friend are you pretending to be -!_

His eyes land on a purple gambeson and straight brown hair, a worn, short cloak that sways in the wind. Eleven's standing at the foot of the tree again, his hand planted against the thick, sturdy trunk. Erik follows muddy footprints down the path and across the bridge until he's standing behind him.

Eleven turns over his shoulder. His brand glows softly through the bandages, and the root gently pulses beneath his fingers. He silently offers his opposite hand to Erik, expression blank but his cheeks wet. Erik, ever the fool, takes it without question.

The world changes around them in an instant; scorched grass becomes lush and full of life, houses reassembled in the blink of an eye. The broken flower pot near a pile of rubble is now whole, sitting in front of a small general store. There are people milling about, children playing down near the church near the river. A butterfly lazily flutters past them.

"When you said you saw the past..." Erik turns, looking all around them. Eleven holds his hand tightly and lets his other hand drift away from the bark. Suddenly, he turns around himself and breaks out into a run, headed for the home now standing on the hill, dragging Erik along with him. "Hey -!"

Eleven bursts through the door and finally lets go of Erik's hand. Erik stumbles in after him only to find a short, older woman staring up at him. She plants her hands on her hips and frowns, brows furrowing. Eleven deflates.

"I told you already, I don't want anything to do with you! Didn't you hear me the first time?!" She shouts, brandishing a wooden spoon at him. Eleven opens his mouth and no words come out - even if he had managed to say something, she continues before he can get close. "My boy is six years old! How can you insist you're him?"

"Mum," Eleven whispers, lips curving into the frown that always comes before tears. He reaches into his bag and pulls out the torn, dirty scrap of cloth, balling it up in bandaged fists, shaking. His voice quivers just as much as his body does, low and quiet, "This is your apron. This... it's yours."

His mother stares at him, scrutinizing him and the piece of fabric he's offering. Her suspicion doesn't disappear as she takes it from him, carefully turning it over in her hands, thumbing away dirt stains and dried mud.

"You, you cut the carrots big for the stew because I like them that way," He says, just as quietly as before. His hands hover around her, his face twisting with despair. He sniffles, barely able to contain himself. A solitary tear runs down his cheek and the curve of his jaw. "I - I have a scar on the back of my leg because Gemma dared me to jump a fence when we were kids. And me an' Gemma, we - we were born on the same day."

She stares at him as recognition dawns on her, her eyes going wide, her mouth hanging open. Eleven crashes into her and wraps his arms around her and shakes. Erik stands beyond the edge of this sentimental moment and feels out of place once again. He sneaks a little further back into the threshold.

"How is this happening?" She asks, nearly breathless. She reaches up and holds him, rubbing circles into his back. Eleven's hair falls around his face in rows, his shawl listing to one side across his shoulders. "Why - how are you here? What happened?"

"I'm sorry," He whispers back. The tears come again, more violent this time. He sobs and his mother holds him and Erik holds the sickening realizaton that she no longer can close to his chest. Eleven buries his face in her shoulder, muffling his already soft voice. "I wanted to see you again. It - it's already been so long."

"Despite all I said, you... you've grown into a fine young man." She says, taking him by the shoulders. He straightens. Erik can see tears in her eyes as well, Eleven sniffling and wiping his face. It's a wonder he hasn't dried up completely, like meat left too long over a fire. "I promise, you can always come home to me. You'll always be my boy."

Eleven embraces her again, and Erik knows why he cries for a second time. The memory of the rubble they slept in is not distant enough for comfort, imposed over this quaint little home still intact. Erik finds his own eyes watering. He wipes his eye with his knuckles before the tears can manage to fall.

Erik blinks and they're standing in front of the tree again, hands still tightly clasped together. He looks around and the houses are destroyed and the grass is burnt. The wind has since overturned his badly fixed flowerpot, scattering wet dirt across the path, the crack in its side widened. Rain comes down in a thin drizzle.

"Eleven..." Erik starts. His hand shakes in Erik's. Yggdrasil's root dulls, the light fading. The large oak tree sways.

"...It's okay," Eleven manages. He wipes his face on his sleeve, turning away from Erik. The town is rubble around them, and his mother is gone and so is everyone else. Eleven continue, quietly, still hiding his face in his arm, "We... we can go, now. I don't want to stay here anymore."

"Let's go find that rock your granddad was talking about, then. And Eleven?" Erik says. He keeps their hands held tightly together, holding firm, bandages folding beneath his fingers. Eleven finally turns to him, face still a little red. "We can come back here whenever you need to. Doesn't matter where or when."

Eleven lets go of his hand to hold him instead. His arms are strong but gentle, and the straps for his pouch and his sheath and their buckles brush against Erik's bare chest. Erik reaches around him and pulls Eleven's hood over his head, the rain intesifying. He awkwardly returns his embrace.

"Thanks." Eleven whispers.

"Don't mention it," Erik reaches back to pull his own hood up, not minding how his hair ends up all uncomfortable around his face and his neck. "It's the least I could do."

They stand there underneath the tree and the leaves sway and the rain falls on them, dripping off the branches where it pools above. They stand there and the wind rustles burnt grass and scatters small, loose pieces of stone. The flowerpot's wet dirt blows across the path.

When Eleven's done holding him, Erik thinks, he'll right the pot and fill the crack again.


End file.
